The present invention is a message deliver system and more particularly, is a computerized telephone dialer that recognizes and defeats the action of devices designed to fool computerized telephone dialers into believing that a phone call can not be completed.
Predictive dialers (PDs) are computerized telephone dialers used by telemarketers to place, at a rapid rate, telephone calls to customer premises. The PDs sort through all the placed calls to find the few that are actually answered by a person. When a call is found that is answered by a person, the call is quickly transferred to a live telemarketing agent.
Predictive dialers sort the placed calls by monitoring the progress of each call and take action based on what happens when the called telephone is answered, i.e. goes off-hook. A chart of typical PD actions is shown in Table 1 below:
TABLE 1EventPD ActionBusy TonePD hangs upDisconnect tone (SpecialPD hangs up. If an SIT is found on repeatedInformation Tone - SIT)calls, the telephone number is deleted from thecall list.No answerPD hangs upAnswering machinePD hangs upLive answerPD searches for a live agent. If one is available,the call is switched to an agent. If none isavailable within a predetermined time, the PDhangs up.
Devices for defeating predictive dialers have been introduced into the marketplace. These devices, called colloquially, “zappers” or “zapping devices”, are connected to a customer's telephone line at the customer's premises. Zapping devices disconnect a calling predictive dialer from the called telephone number by placing a signal on the telephone line that appears to the predictive dialer to be a type of Special Information tone (SIT) signal. Such signals are used by United States telephone companies to signal ineffective call attempts.
Each type of SIT signal is characterized by a unique three tone sequence. A particular SIT, used generally by zapping devices for defeating a predictive dialer, is the operator intercept (OI) sequence consisting of a first tone at 913.8 Hz., a second tone at 1370.6 Hz. and a third tone 1776.7 Hz. Zapping devices generally operate by detecting when the called telephone is taken off hook and thereafter generating the first tone of the OI sequence, thereby deceiving a typical predictive dialer into believing that the called telephone number is not in service. In response, the predictive dialer releases the telephone line before a message from the predictive dialer is transmitted to the called telephone number. Generally, it is necessary for the zapping device to generate only the first tone of the OI sequence to defeat a PD, since a PD, in the interest of conserving time, determines that a full SIT signal has been generated with the detection of the first tone.
There are computerized telephone calls which need to be completed despite the existence of a zapping device on the telephone line of the number being called. Such calls include appointment reminder calls from, for instance, a physicians office, or public emergency notification calls. Accordingly, there is a need for a telephone dialers, that can distinguish the signal generated by the zapping device from a true SIT signal in order to deliver a desired message to the called telephone member. Further, the desired message needs to be deliverable by the telephone dialer whenever the telephone is answered, whether by a human or by a machine such as an answering machine, a facsimile or a modem.
Prior solutions for defeating the result of an emergency or appointment call being “zapped” require a human to place a follow up telephone call to the called telephone number in order to determine if the telephone number that was zapped was actually not in service. A preferred solution to the problem would provide the means for automatically distinguishing the tones generated by the zapping device from the tones of an actual SIT.